The Mother-in-Law Cocktail

This New Orleans charmer features complex, spicy flavor

Looking for a new twist on Mother’s Day? Try this tasty tipple.

It features bourbon at play with some spicy, jazzy companions (because New Orleans, you know).

Serve it and toast all the maternal spirits in your life. It’s the right thing to do.

The Monte Carlo Cocktail

Elegant as its Riviera namesake

The Monte Carlo is super smooth. Fitting, that.

It’s a rye-based sipper, which makes it nice and warming. That’s perfect for autumn (which is rapidly approaching in our part of the world).

This drink will perk you up on a chilly night. And you want to be perky, don’t you?

The Pendennis Cocktail

This classic has the clear, cleansing flavor of an April shower

The weather is finally getting warmer in our part of the world. Soon we’ll be craving cool libations to sip during those long spring evenings.

The Pendennis Cocktail, with its pink hue and enticing apricot aroma, is perfect for that. Named after a Louisville private club, the drink is less well known than it deserves to be. Once you taste it, though, we’re betting this will become a regular in your drinks rotation.

Be sure to share it with your friends, too. They’ll toast your generosity.

The Fourth Regiment Cocktail

This spicy Manhattan-lite is perfect for summer

We love us a Manhattan Cocktail. As traditionally made, though, it can be a bit heavy for warm weather.

But fear not. The Fourth Regiment is here to save us.

It has less whiskey and more sweet vermouth than a traditional Manhattan, so it’s less alcoholic. And it uses three different kinds of bitters, which gives it a spicy, aromatic flavor that pairs well with many summer foods. Like barbecue, for example.

Sometimes it pays to march to a different drummer.

The Vieux Carré Cocktail

A New Orleans original

Vieux Carré means “old square” in French. It also happens to be what they called New Orleans’ French Quarter back in the day. So when Walter Bergeron invented this cocktail in the 1930s (while tending bar at a hotel in the French Quarter), it was a no-brainer to name it after the Big Easy’s oldest and most famous neighborhood.

The watering hole where Bergeron worked is now called the Carousel Bar. And yes, it resembles (and revolves like) a carnival carousel.

If you’d like to ride the painted ponies, but can’t make it to Nawlins right now, no worries. Just mix up a Vieux Carré Cocktail—and take your palate for a spin.

The Seelbach Cocktail

This bourbon-based champagne cocktail brightens up the holidays

Like bourbon? And champagne? Then we’ve got just the drink for you.

The Seelbach was invented around 1917 as the signature cocktail of the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Rumor has it that F. Scott Fitzgerald hung out at the hotel bar while writing The Great Gatsby (remember, Daisy Buchanan hailed from Louisville). And that Gatsby character? He may have been inspired by a gangster Fitzgerald met there—presumably while enjoying this flavorful elixir.

True story? Who knows? What we do know is that sometime during Prohibition (when the hotel was forced to close its bar), the recipe for this drink was lost. Then a hotel manager rediscovered it in 1995.

Lucky for us. Because on Kitchen Riffs this year, we’ll be doing nothing but cookies and cocktails from now until Christmas. As a bonus, all the cocktails will be made with champagne (or sparkling wine, to be more precise).

So stock up on bubbly and grab your party hat. As Gatsby might say, “Time to enjoy some holiday cheer, old sport.”